Nineteen Days in the Idaho Wilderness: They Did What They Had to Do | E 225 episode artwork

EPISODE · Mar 30, 2026 · 31 MIN

Nineteen Days in the Idaho Wilderness: They Did What They Had to Do | E 225

from The CRUX: True Survival Stories · host Bleav + Kaycee McIntosh + Julie Henningsen

On the morning of May 5th, 1979, four residents of Estevan, Saskatchewan boarded a small Cessna bound for Boise, Idaho on what was supposed to be a day trip. By that afternoon, the plane was down in a remote canyon in the Salmon River Mountains, two of the four passengers were dead, and two badly injured survivors were completely alone. No gear. No supplies. No rescue coming. What Donna Johnson and Brent Dyer did over the next nineteen days to stay alive is one of the most remarkable — and least known — survival stories in North American history. This episode does not look away from any of it. Timestamps: 01:07 Crash Begins In Idaho 03:15 Meet The Passengers 05:28 Weather Route Decision 07:12 Impact And Injuries 10:51 Losses And Isolation 12:18 Search Misses Them 12:58 Cold Hunger And Journaling 15:25 Unthinkable Choice 18:25 Decision To Walk Out 21:53 Nineteen Day Escape 23:24 Rescue And Home News 24:30 Puppy And Lawsuit Fallout 27:01 Faith Legacy And Closing Listen AD FREE: Support our podcast at patreaon: http://patreon.com/TheCruxTrueSurvivalPodcast Email us! [email protected] Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thecruxpodcast/ Get schooled by Julie in outdoor wilderness medicine! https://www.headwatersfieldmedicine.com/   REFERENCES Johnson v. Pischke, 108 Idaho 397, 700 P.2d 19 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1985) Gzowski, Peter. The Sacrament. Atheneum Books, 1980. "We Had to Eat Him and We Did." Maclean's, June 11, 1979. Timson, Judith. "Survival on Faith and Human Flesh." Maclean's, October 6, 1980. "Father's Protective Instinct Led to Miracle in Idaho Mountains." Regina Leader-Post, May 26, 1979. "Pair Walk Away from Crash Site." Lawrence Journal-World, May 26, 1979. "Air Crash Survivor Recounts Ordeal." Brandon Sun, June 1, 1979. Penn, Alix and Carmella Lowkis. "ICE Part II — The Crash of the Skyhawk." Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, December 2020. Emilson, K. When Memories Remain, 3rd ed. Perpetual Books, 2018. "Brent Dyer Survived a Plane Crash — Extraordinary Lives." YouTube, DoxNM, 2017. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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On May 5th, 1979, a small plane carrying four people from a small Canadian city went down in the mountains of central Idaho. What followed was nineteen days of survival that pushed two ordinary young people to the absolute edge of what a human being can endure — and beyond.

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Nineteen Days in the Idaho Wilderness: They Did What They Had to Do | E 225

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